


Strangled By Our Coveting

by misgivings



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Ending, Gen, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23790142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misgivings/pseuds/misgivings
Summary: The great serpent’s eye snapped open. Not asleep, just resting. And she began to speak.“Hero of Light. I have never before in all my lifetimes seen someone fuck up so badly.”Vriska Serket steals the retcon powers first. The reality her hands craft is bleak.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14
Collections: HSCCS Promptfest 2020





	Strangled By Our Coveting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CarpeVerpa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarpeVerpa/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [CarpeVerpa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarpeVerpa/pseuds/CarpeVerpa) in the [HSCCSPromptfest2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/HSCCSPromptfest2020) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Homestuck had a mostly happy ending, didn't it? But that could have changed any time. Suppose there was a timeline where everything went wrong, and none of our heroes ended up with a good ending?
> 
> I give full latitude to write or act here. Will it be a timeline where the Condesce managed to achieve all her goals? One where Lord English or Jack managed to kill everyone in their way? Even something Epilogue compliant where Ult!Dirk or Candy Jane have their way? So long as the forces of evil ultimately triumph over good, I'll be satisfied.
> 
> Canon-adjacent would be preferred, but is not necessary, especially if you have a compelling AU idea. Go nuts!

Beneath a roiling, world-spanning ocean, Cetus was waking. Her home was a nautical graveyard, and the battleground that would become her tomb was a colossal, air-filled hold in the belly of an ancient wreckage. She had chosen it with the knowledge that the hero of light would not need a bargain, but a duel. Cetus, even among the standards of denizens, was particularly prophetic like that.

It came to no surprise, then, that she had scarcely opened one eye when Vriska launched her first attack. Were she the observant type, the troll could have learned her denizens long-winded prophecy from the countless temples she raided, and wouldn't have been so surprised to roll so staggeringly low on her ancestral dice. As Cetus’ massive serpentine bulk uncoiled, the only ailment she had thus far suffered was a very silly hat perched on her head.

The momentary betrayal of luck, much like every other aspect of the fight, was intended as a lesson for the player, one scripted years in advance. Though Cetus would die, the battle need not be considered a loss. She babbled in riddles while attacks from the god-tiered Thief of Light whittled through her gargantuan health vial. The Serket girl ignored almost all of it in the heat of battle, but remembered distinctly her dying words.

“When you find the treasure you most covet, all of creation will hinge on you having the bravery to rescind it. Your prize is intended for another.”

Light–the metaphysical facet of reality, not the ambiguous wave-particle phenomena that mortals named after it–is the essence of information, and diametrically opposed to Void. Cetus dwelled in the deepest crevasse of the ocean; a naturally occurring expression of Void, and the only thing that could possibly conceal such a monster of Light itself. And so, when Cetus spoke in her paradoxically-comprehensible monster tongue, it was impossible to ever truly forget.

The memory of those final words lay dormant but indelible, forever set into read-only mode where it lived in Vriska’s brain. And at the most serendipitous moment possible, she remembered.

“Oh my god, no, no! Fuck you, Cetus!” She yelled at seemingly nobody as she lifted the lid of the chest, first laying her eyes on the treasure and being filled with an understanding. Prophecies have a tendency to be forgotten, so that they can creep up on their unsuspecting victim and hit them at the exact worst time. If one is lucky, they get to remember it  _ before _ making a mistake.

Vriska cast her eyes around suspiciously, as if the memory of Cetus might have congealed in the dreambubbles and come back to spite her. But all she saw was the bewildered faces of her comrades, who were tolerating her outburst out of sheer exasperation. Aradia wasn't even grinning anymore, a fact she immediately discarded as irrelevant. She turned back to the treasure and could hear the memory of her denizen’s words again. There was no doubt in her heart about what that ancient snake 8itch had meant.

“You don't want me to have the treasure? Okay! Nobody will have it!” A grey fist, clenched tight in a ball, raised up. Vriska punched the treasure with all her godly might, forgetting every legend of it’s supposed intangibility. Her momentum carried her shoulder-deep in the void and she cried out in surprise.

“It's got me! Aradia, pull me out!” She yelped, bracing her shoe on the chest and trying to rip free. But pulling against the hole produced an impossible sensation, the feeling of her entire being vibrating out of alignment with the rest of reality. This was no Void, it was an even lower-order emptiness. The true vacuum, which even overwhelming Light could not dispel.

And she was stuck in it. Most of her friends were giving a bemused look, wilful bystanders that had seen their captain do a lot of stupid stuff on this adventure. This was another throwaway gag to them. John, bless his stupid human heart, was the only one with the sense to help.

“Wow, your arm isn't coming out the other side. Do you think it's a wormhole?” He paused to ask, and grabbed her shoulders, pulling with their combined strength. It accomplished nothing except blurring her further, and he immediately let go before he made things worse.

“Will somebody hurry up and cut my fucking arm off!?” Vriska screamed, but within moments she was simply gone.

“Well,” Aradia mumbled. “That wasn't supposed to happen.”

* * *

Within minutes, Vriska had stopped yelling at the bare vacuum that existed outside canon. So the treasure was a trap, 8oo hoo. Sweeps of FLARP had prepared her for all manner of weird dungeon bullshit. This wasn't even as dumb as the tomb of horror and that gender changing gimmick. 

Within hours, Vriska had a tenuous grasp on what had happened. The treasure ruse was a distraction. The “curse” placed upon her was a blessing in disguise. Cetus had tried to deny her some awesome teleportation powers, probably based on some kind of “fairness” or how a Space player “deserved” the treasure. Nonsense for useless wigglers who weren't strong enough to take power. Sometimes a girl just needed to swipe the fulfilment of someone else's ultimate purpose to defeat the big bad, shit happens. Not that she had any clue how this was supposed to defeat Lord English.

But she had gotten what she wanted, right? Now all she had to do was neatly reinsert herself into relevance, and for that she just needed to focus her powers enough to teleport out of the dream bubbles. She focused her thoughts on the meteor, which by John’s rambling she took would be showing up into some serious trouble soon. The perfect timing for a ghostly pirate babe to fix everything and save the world.

Vriska appeared floating in space near the meteor. A glance around revealed more floating space rocks, and it became evident she’d missed. Targeted a place, but not a time. And here she was at the most prominent memory of this dump, one that stood out in her mind. Down there was herself, and she quickly darted into a hiding spot offscreen before she interrupted proceedings.

There was a reason it was a poignant memory. From where she was tucked away in the stairwell, she could see Terezi too. Now, Vriska knew she was a ghost, even if she was also somehow chilling in like, normal space? As normal as it got. She wasn't alive, was the important part, so she figured she had to watch Terezi kill her. Otherwise then she would never have died, so how could she go on a ghost treasure cruise, and...augh, this time stuff hurt her brain.

So she watched like a professional as Terezi backstabbed past-her like a bitch, distantly observing the stoic expression she'd never gotten to see the first time around. Vriska certainly didn't feel sickened over it, in a very non-professional way, totally not befitting the badass hero who was going to fix everything. Yes, that's right, mourn the incredibly attractive body. She just needed her to not pay attention for a second…

Terezi was expecting Karkat, or at worst Gamzee. What she was not prepared for was two very familiar and out of place hands to grab her horns, each of them trembling with anger. Vriska wrenched her head with all her strength, and snapped her neck just like that, barely registering the terrified sound that escaped Terezi. The Seer was no more, and the score was settled. 1-1. She was still dead, so time should  _ probably _ be fine. Vriska even checked the pulse on her own cooling corpse, which was the kind of stone-cold shit you had to do to get by in this game. Yep, dead as shit, and no rainbows to speak of. A 100% Just killing.

Vriska nonchalantly pocketed the fetch modus off her dead body, and flew off into the sky while trying to think of something that could teleport her to the future. She could hear Karkat yelling in the distance, and some frankly gross sounds. Was he kissing Terezi?

She counted who was left, and who would be there in the future. No Terezi anymore, that backstabbing bitch didn't deserve a place in her finale. Out of her friends, some of them were too fragile to count on even making it to the end. Gamzee, though? Yeah, that guy was basically never going to die.

Vriska had never seen the planets of the new kids, so the old ones would have to do. She pictured the Land of Light and Rain in all its gaudy eye-searing splendour, and imagined a loud honk. If this didn't work, she'd cycle through every other planet until she found one Gamzee had visited (would visit?).

She didn't have a plan beyond that, and didn't have time to make one. Her newfound power moved her in a flash of light, and her boots sunk into stark white sand. The waters of LoFaF were pearlescent and shimmering as they lapped the shore. The perfect ocean for introspection. Even a soul like Vriska’s was inclined to stare across it and think.

“Hey ghost sister. RIGHT IN MOTHER FUCKING TIME.” Gamzee’s harsh bark made her jump, and she spun around with her arms crossed.

“On my god, I might be the first person to ever be happy to see you, but you seriously need to cut that out.” She sighed, shaking her head. Yeah, Gamzee was still basically the worst. But she was in time, which meant her gambit had worked.

“So, who are we fighting? Jack? English? Something worse entirely?”

“Naw, Vriska. The fighting is over. OVER FOREVER.” He smiled, and retrieved his UNIREAL AIR, which was still the most fantastically ugly piece of shit she had ever seen. “But you showed up in time to see the fireworks. TO FONDLY REGARD THE MIRACLE OF A NEW CREATION.”

Vriska was planning on asking him more questions, but he got on the awful one-wheel vehicle and took off almost directly up. She stared aghast for a second, watching him speed to the top of Rose’s hivestem, before sprouting her cerulean wings and flying up after him.

At top, Gamzee had already taken a front-row seat as the fireworks indeed began. It was the birth of a brand new universe, and even Vriska couldn't deny the spectacle, joining Gamzee at the peak. Both of them had watched it before, but he seemed equally rapt now. Vriska, not so much, and she squinted at the victory platform to see who had gathered there. 

“Is that Her fucking Condescension? Where's John? Or even Karkat? Won't someone let me know what's going on!?”

“Has it occurred to you. THAT I’M FUCKING BUSY HERE?” He growled, and Vriska flinched. Obviously she knew Gamzee was kind of fucking nuts in the head, but she still kind of assumed he was on their side here.

She took a few steps away from him and quietly pulled out her phone. Not a single one of her friends were online. What, had no one told them she was back? Vriska tried pestering basically all of them, getting no response back. Maybe there was some kind of Voidy thing in the way? Well, she could always…

Vriska glanced up at the victory platform again. Not only was it Her Condescension, but the human girl with overpowered First Guardian abilities was clearly in cahoots. And every bad vibe from Gamzee told her team douchebags had probably already cleaned up her chump friends. And she  _ needed _ those chump friends! At least, she did if she was going to take on some seriously high-level minibosses on her way to total victory. It was time to take stock of her options.

Vriska began a little mental list. She had herself, obviously, something that would be circled and highlighted at the top if she was writing this down. No need to save the best for last. After that, well...she had an inventory full of sweet loot, which was admittedly just things she had stolen from her friends back on the meteor. A pile of horns probably wouldn’t do much good. Could Gamzee be bribed? She checked, but he had already left, silent as a honking ninja. So no Gamzee. And most of her friends and assets were kind of tied up in dream space, and thus as valuable as dirt. She still had the most powerful dice known to trollkind, and a mean right hook, and great fashion sense. As soon as she found her friends, she could get back to leading, in which she considered herself a valuable tactical asset. Surely  _ one _ of her friends managed to avoid a Heroic death.

She made a sour face, and looked down at LoFaF. On the bright side, she could fly, so she could make good time on search and rescue, but within hours the frog would mature enough for the door to open. With infinite planning time, Vriska knew she’d come out on top, but right now she had a very severe deadline and all of her usual options were coming up empty. Adversity was going to force her into some less savoury choices.

Vriska leapt off the house and began to search for Cetus.

* * *

On Rose’s planet, Cetus had chosen the polar opposite approach to concealment. Rather than cloaking her presence with the darkest, most treacherous ocean she could find on a world rife with secrets, this planet was utterly bathed in Light. It cascaded in waterfalls of luminescence and rained down almost constantly. Picking out even the beacon of power that was the Light denizen was impossible with so much background noise.

Fortunately, Sburb was still first and foremost a videogame. Vriska simply flew over the planet at breakneck speed until she located the upper echelons of monsters, slaying them all and turning over the temple they guarded. She got lucky on the second temple, and found Rose’s 7th gate.

Cetus dwelled inside a massive cavern of pink crystal, and was soundly asleep. She recalled that the humans made basically zero progress in their quests, after all. The coiled giant had no need to wake up. Until now.

“Hey, Cetus! I’ve come to bargain!” Vriska yelled, cupping both hands to her mouth. “Get your ass up! I know all your iterations are basically the same anyway!”

The great serpent’s eye snapped open. Not asleep, just resting. And she began to speak.

“Hero of Light. I have never before in all my lifetimes seen someone  _ fuck up so badly _ .” Vriska felt the denizen’s words stabbing at her like a threat. Cetus had never shown this anger even while battling to the death.

“All that was asked of you was to do nothing. I see now my words were wasted on such a deeply misguided person as you. Someone who sees good advice and takes it as a personal challenge. A living testament to spite. Of course, you understand I am Light fully realised. But even I did not see that mistake coming.”

“Oh, come  _ on _ !” Vriska retorted, folding her arms. “What, all this because I jacked some sweet powers? Who else was going to get these? It’s not like Aradia needs more time travel power.”   
  
“The fact you do not understand the mistake you have made is testament to just how direly undeserving you are of this prize. It exists outside the conceptual realm of causality, beyond the nature of timelines necessary and timelines doomed. It is not my place to dictate for whom the treasure of Yaldabaoth was destined...merely that it was not you.”   
  
“So what? I’m not good enough to win? Show me how to use this thing right and I’ll clean house. Save all the dumb humans and make sure they win.”   
  
“I cannot. It was not written such.” The beast sighed, and Vriska only angered further.

“You’re the fucking denizen! You screwed the pooch on my personal development last time and now you’re skimping out on responsibility? Give me the fucking Choice or whatever!”

“You want the Choice?” She could swear Cetus was bemused by that.

“Yes! Give me your stupid angel’s bargain and I’ll make this whole mess work.”    
  
Cetus inhaled deeply, and drew up to her full height, starting to shine until her radiance was too blinding to look at. And she spoke.

“Thief of Light, I offer you such. One: you may relinquish the power you have taken unjustly. I will ferry you to a time where your victory against the Empress will be merely improbable rather than impossible, and in turn you will learn the true ramifications of your mistakes.” The pause she left afterwards was pregnant with meaning, and when Vriska had finally processed it she replied.

“And the other?”   
  
“Option two: I devour you and you never harm a single soul again. It will be less fitting a punishment.” There was no hint of irony in her voice, and Vriska wondered if she had waded in too deep. She looked around the arena and realised it offered no escape. The portal out would appear only by Cetus’ will or by her death. Reluctantly, she accepted the bargain, and approached the serpent.

“Okay, how do I do this?” She asked, and the denizen suddenly coiled around her, surrounding her on all sides with scales and tightening until she couldn’t move.

“If you have accepted the terms in your heart, then no further action will be necessary.” She whispered, and Vriska felt a sudden painless jolt in her every muscle. “Goodbye, Vriska. And please: let us stop meeting this way. Or ever, for that matter.”

* * *

Vriska woke floating over a planet that was certainly Earth. No way, had the humans just...remade their old world? Talk about hung up on the past. But there were some changes that even an alien could spot. The water level was higher, leaving parts of the North American continent unrecognisable. The rest too, but the kids likely stuck to where they were from. Time to get the band back together!

John would be easiest to press-gang into helping, so she flew down into the atmosphere and towards the place he had called Washington. Diving towards the urban sprawl on the coast, she spotted a disturbingly familiar sight. Kanaya’s hive! Or, at least, this building had sprung up from the same Skaian seed, carried to Earth by some meteor. Remembering Jade had lived in one too, she considered it a good omen, and started stalking around the exterior for a way in.

Vriska flew into the first open window she saw, finding herself in a human respiteblock. Based on the decoration, she guessed that either it belonged to John, or his great taste in movies was just a universal thing for western humans. She was about to snoop in the closet for more clues when a human man came through the door, a glass bottle dangling from one hand.   
  
“Vriska?” He cried, and she realised it  _ was _ John, just a little older than she remembered.

“John! Great news, I’m alive or whatever. Look, I haven’t been in the loop on anything for ages, so you need to tell me everything you-”

John jumped forward and hugged her tight in his strong arms. He was taller than her now —as a ghost, she hadn’t changed since she was 6 sweeps, whereas John had grown. He had stubble on his chin, and smelled like paint thinner. He’d dropped the bottle in his haste, and it landed label-up on the carpet. One of those funny human intoxicants. Sniffling back tears, John pulled away to arm’s length.

“It’s really you. Your eyes and everything. You’re not some ghost come to haunt me. You’re real.” He said, eyes misty behind his big square glasses. In her reflection, Vriska could see her yellow sclera and spidery mutant pupils. Cetus had made her flesh and blood again. She guessed that made some sense. 

“Okay, later we’re gonna talk about personal space. Hugging is not really a thing for us outside of relationships, okay?” She said, folding her arms defensively. Vriska probably couldn’t defeat his mangrit if he  _ did _ launch into another hug, though.

“Well, geez, I know. But it’s just been so long!” He rubbed his chin sheepishly. “And you’re all tiny like when we were kids. Talk about memory lane! I haven’t, uh. Sorry, I need a minute.” John walked over to the open window, down at the streets. He couldn’t be more than ten sweeps old, but he moved like someone far older.

“Vriska, you kinda missed...everything. The Condesce turning like half our friends evil. The big fight. Rose and Dave…” Vriska watched him search for the strength to say what was obvious, and come up short.

“A lot of people didn’t make it. I don’t know how you got here, but you should probably just go back.”    
  
She took a look at John. He seemed aeons apart from the dumb kid that she could just push around. Even his world-weary face, which probably hadn’t grinned for a long time. And he had the audacity to tell her to give up. Vriska was seeing blue as she grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.

“Well, you made it, dumbass! What, did you give up fighting? I would have put money on you getting a heroic end! If you made it, where is everyone else?” She yelled, animatedly shaking him by the front of his shirt.

“Vriska, keep your voice down!” He hissed, and pushed her off easily with all the strength of a fully-grown Egbert. In the momentary silence he tilted his head, listening for something. Whatever it was, he couldn’t hear it. He grabbed his bottle and sulked across the room, sitting on his bed and staring at the ceiling. Too chicken to meet her eyes.

“It’s Jade. She’s gone all evil and crue ever since something happened to her. I have to stay inside the tower or else she’ll teleport me home and find a way to hurt me.” He twisted the cap off the vodka and took a heavy swig. So that was why he smelled funny.

“We’re god-tier, you know? So killing us doesn’t work. Unless they can trick us into a final stand. That’s how Rose put it. We could all be kept prisoners, but we would survive so long as we kept a calm head.”   
  
“Then Jane—I guess you don’t know Jane, she’s my nanna and also my mom—Jane has the idea to kill Kanaya. Rose did not like that one bit, no sir. And you can imagine Dave wasn’t gonna let her die. Fucking Dave. He always said I was the hero, and then he—he fucking fights with her! So yes, I guess I sorta stopped fighting about when my sister pulled Dave’s insides out.”

John left it there, drinking some more, while Vriska absorbed the bombshell. She was really planning on the supposedly-unbeatable combination of a Knight of Time and Seer of Light. She sat down next to John, putting a sympathetic arm over his broad shoulders.

“So, like, where are the others?”

“Jane, she uh. Keeps Jake with her at all times. I got invited to their wedding as the best man. Dirk cut his own head off like, three minutes after being left alone in his room. Roxy just vanished, which I guess she can do? It’s a voidy thing. I really hope she comes back one day…”

John was silently crying now, forced to relieve losing all of them again. Vriska muttered some empty platitude and stood up, stretching and putting on her old jacket. Still fit like a glove. John snapped out of his melancholy when she walked over to his wardrobe and started going through it, throwing things out of her way and onto the floor.

“What do you think you’re doing!” He cried, no longer watching his volume.   
  


“John, no offence, but you look like something the spider dragged in. Don’t you have your god-tier clothes? Or that sweet outfit I made you? Go shave that furry grub off your lip while I find an ass-kicking outfit.”

“I’m not coming.” He said from the bed.

“This is not the time to act like a petulant pupa, John. I need you to-”

“I said I’m not coming!” He shouted, voice cracking. Like she’d dragged the teenager kicking and screaming out of the husk of a man. “I don’t want to come with you! Everyone I actually liked is  _ gone _ and I wish I’d died with them!” 

Vriska blinked eight pupils. So he had found his spine at the exact worst time. God, she should really just write off anyone who ever earned the title Heir or Page. Useless, all of them. Before she could say something hurtful that might rouse him to action, a terrible sound echoed through the tower.

“John, what have I told you about yelling! Can’t you have quieter breakdowns?”

The voice was Jade’s, most certainly. But it crackled with potential, her words irradiated with the background radiation of two universes dying. She was power incarnate, and she was somewhere inside the building. John looked resolved for the first time since Vriska got here, and stood up.

“I mean it, I’m not going with you. I don’t want to see you ever again. Please don’t get caught. You aren’t exactly, uh, a great person. But I don’t think my heart is ready to see you die.” 

He took another hit of the vodka and ran into the corridor, throwing it against the wall. It shattered into a million twinkling shards, and he yelled down the hall at the top of his voice.

“Maybe I wouldn’t have so many fucking breakdowns if I didn’t have to live with you slaughtering my best friends! Did you ever think about that?”

Jade’s presence was cosmic. Vriska could feel the gasp of shock she let out. John was buying her precious time to get away before Jade could scent the troll.

She saluted him and ran for the window, leaping from the balcony as she heard John cry out. Whatever his comeuppance would be, she wasn’t staying around to find out. She still had a world to save.

**Author's Note:**

> In A6A6I5, we saw Vriska as cunning but utterly callous and hurtful, because she basically sees everything as a game. She is utterly incapable of conceiving of defeat, so what happens when her own tinkering puts her in an unwinnable state?
> 
> This story has no ending. The karma chameleon keeps fighting forever.


End file.
